This is another means for me to communicate, educate and participate within the Business Intelligence industry. It is a perfect forum for airing opinions, thoughts, vendor and client updates, problems and questions. To maximize the blog's value, it must be a participative venue. This means I will look forward to hearing from you often, since your input is vital to the blog's success. All I ask is that you treat me, the blog, and everyone who uses it with respect.

So...check it out every week to see what is new and exciting in our ever changing BI world.

A thought leader, visionary, and practitioner, Claudia Imhoff, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert on analytics, business intelligence, and the architectures to support these initiatives. Dr. Imhoff has co-authored five books on these subjects and writes articles (totaling more than 150) for technical and business magazines.

She is also the Founder of the Boulder BI Brain Trust, a consortium of independent analysts and consultants (www.BBBT.us). You can follow them on Twitter at #BBBT

Another company bit the dust today as Pitney Bowes announced it was buying up the rest (90%) of Firstlogic in a deal valued at $50.3 million. One can't help but wonder why Firstlogic would agree to this...

OK -- here is your chance to let me know how you really feel about this blog. SearchCRM.com is holding a contest to find the most outstanding and popular blogs in the CRM and BI markets. Anyone can nominate a blog, but it must be on the topic of CRM, BI or a related field, and it must be maintained on a regular and consistent basis. Be sure to get your nomination in by September 30. To nominate a blog, click here.

Microsoft is getting into the package tracking and delivery business. Yes, the mighty software company has partnered with hardware vendors to create its own version of the RFID (Radio Frequency Identifier). Today they are offering it to post offices throughout the world but who knows where they will go tomorrow...

Here's one for ya -- vendors that supply CRM software to US companies wishing to improve their customers' loyalty have the lowest percentage of loyalty amongst those very companies when compared to other software segments. Ouch! So says a new report from Walker Information...

This week the Data Warehousing Institute held their Summer conference in lovely San Diego, CA. The theme this time around was bringing the business and IT organizations together. The attendees, vendors and presenters alike learned a great deal about how to do this. In addition, I tried my hand at pod casting... Read on to find out more.